The advent of computers, interactive electronic communication, the Internet, and other advances in the digital realm of consumer electronics have resulted in a great variety of programming, recording, and viewing options for users who view media content such as television programs. In implementing such enhanced programming, the set-top box (STB) has become an important computing device for accessing media content services and the media content within those services. In addition to supporting traditional analog broadcast video functionality, STBs also support an increasing number of two-way digital services such as video-on-demand, internet protocol television (IPTV), and personal video recording.
An STB is typically connected to a cable or satellite, or generally, a subscriber television system, and includes hardware and software necessary to provide the functionality of the subscriber television system at a user site. While many STBs are stand-alone devices that are externally connected to a television, an STB and/or its functionality may be integrated into a television or personal computer, a mobile device such as a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA), or even into an audio device such as a programmable radio, as is known.
An STB is usually configured to provide users with a large number and variety of media content choices. For example, a user may choose to record and/or experience (e.g., view) a variety of broadcast television programs, pay-per-view services, video-on-demand programming, Internet services, and audio programming via an STB.
Conventional STBs, however, are traditionally limited to receiving media content from a media content provider (e.g., from a headend unit broadcasting signals including media content). Typically, an STB tuner is used to tune the STB to a particular media (e.g., television) channel, stream, address, frequency or other carrier in order to receive and process the media content that is transmitted by the media content provider on that carrier. A standard STB tuner can receive and process only one media content instance at a time. Accordingly, conventional STBs are limited in the number of different media content instances (e.g., television programs) that can be concurrently received and processed. For instance, an STB with a single tuner is able to receive and process only one media content instance at a time, while an STB with dual tuners can receive and process up to two media content instances at a time.
Limits on the number of media content instances that can be concurrently received and processed by an STB can be frustrating to a user who wishes to view and/or record multiple media content instances that are broadcast by a media content provider at concurrent or overlapping times. For example, a user of an STB having dual tuners may wish but be unable to receive and record three different television shows that are broadcast during the same time period or overlapping time periods. This scenario is not uncommon given the large amounts of media content being broadcast, as well as a common practice among broadcasters of scheduling broadcasts of popular media (e.g., television shows) at concurrent or overlapping times in order to compete with one another. Because of the costs associated with STB tuners and their installation, the addition of more tuners to conventional STBs is generally undesirable and often impractical.